One Last Sun
by Omnicat
Summary: He is not alone, at the end of it all. It would probably have been easier if he had been. That's why the Force does it, he's sure. / DEATH FIC


**Title:** One Last Sun

 **Author:** Omnicat

 **Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** George Lucas & co's _Star Wars_ movies, though nothing specific except for _Episode VII – The Force Awakens_ and _Episode VIII – The Last Jedi_.

 **Warnings:** Suicide.

 **Characters & Relationships:** Ben & Han

 **Summary:** He is not alone, at the end of it all. It would probably have been easier if he had been. That's why the Force does it, he's sure. **/ DEATH FIC / 2002 words**

 **Author's Note:** Written for spookykingdomstarlight in the 2018 Trick or Treat Exchange on AO3. Enjoy!

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

 **One Last Sun**

The engine room is warm and dim and in a lifetime of fighting himself, of trying to turn Light into Dark or passion into evil or what he thought he was into what he learned he ought to be until he could scarcely tell up from down, he has never encountered anything so tempting. His tongue feels thick, dry, and his eyes ache and itch. Even now, mere moments from his goal, he is fighting an almost overwhelming urge to lean his clammy forehead against the nearest metal surface and just let go of being awake. Force, he's tired.

"I wish you were real," he says for what feels like the hundredth time. He's not sure he's actually been _saying_ it over and over and over or just thinking it.

' _There's no evidence that I'm not,'_ the ghost of his father tells him with a crooked grin.

His father has been telling him a lot of things, and he can't remember most of it. It guts him to realize that. Dad is back, talking to him, listening to him, _caring about him_ , and his worthless brain is too addled to take it in properly.

But he can't remember a lot of things right now. Like when he last slept. Like how he's managed to get here in one piece in the state he's in. Like how much time he has.

He remembers flashes of black-clad throats, crushed, and throwing white-armored figures into the walls, and screens full of schematics blurring and doubling and dancing before his eyes, and the canyon-like bowels of the inner armory, where the most potent and terrible substances are kept. He remembers something inexplicable rising like a blister on his mind, remembers it popping, remembers meeting a second pair of eyes in his deserted chambers, remembers...

" _You're not real."_

' _Depends on your definition, I think.'_

" _You're dead. How did you come back?"_

' _I didn't. Death is the end, kid. There's no undoing it. You killed me and I'm never coming back.'_

He remembers unraveling in a matter of moments.

" _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

' _I know. I forgive you.'_

" _No you don't! You can't!"_

' _Banthashit. Why not, huh?'_

" _Because I'm a monster._ I _don't forgive me!"_

' _Well, luckily for the both of us, that's not how me forgiving you works. But you know what? I know a way you can make it up to me, if that's what you want.'_

The hole he burned through his father's chest is still there, and every time he sees it, something new breaks inside of him. He _knows_ that what he's seeing isn't real, but his mind doesn't care. It feels like his animal brain is banging his emotional processing centers into the front of his skull and trampling on everything the Force tells him along the way.

Force, he needs sleep.

" _Anything,"_ he remembers saying. And he hasn't stopped thinking it since. _"I'd do anything for you."_

And he thinks he remembers his father smiling like he was being murdered all over again, and reaching out to touch his face. _'It's only a little bit for me. It's for you, Ben. And your mom, and that girl, and the Resistance, and the rest of the galaxy. But most of all for you. It's what I've wanted for you from the moment I came looking for you.'_

Of course, he doesn't remember his father actually touching him. His father is dead. His father can't touch anything anymore, and it's all his fault.

"I wish you were real," he whispers again, blinking vainly through another humiliating onslaught of tears. "I wish I hadn't been so weak and foolish."

But what good has wishing ever done him? It had never kept his father from leaving or his mother from being busy or his uncle from giving up on him, or made the voice in his head go away, or secured his Knights' loyalty or his master's approval, or kept Rey from coming to her senses and slamming the door on him. Wishing wouldn't bring back the future she had seen, or the parents he had slain, or the promise and innocence he must have possessed once, long, long ago, as a boy untested by pain and temptation. Wishing only leaves him feeling empty and scraped raw.

' _You're not weak, Ben,'_ his father says, impossibly kind, and the rush of shame it elicits has him finally shaking himself awake and refocusing on his task. _'You're a lot of things, but you've never been weak. Foolish... eh. But hey, there are worse things in the world than –'_

"Murdering your own father? Yes, I imagine being murdered by your own son would top that."

The computer blinks an angry 'action not authorized' up at him. He punches in his override code, even angrier.

' _Alright, poor choice of words. But eyes on the future, okay, kiddo? You_ are _my son and I don't want you suffering, not even for this. You think it doesn't get old watching you waste away?'_

Now the computer is saying one of the rows of power banks isn't connected properly. He ducks down beneath the control panel to look for the culprit connection and slap it into place.

' _Or that I wouldn't've stayed far, far away from you and that lightsaber of yours if I didn't think you were worth the risk?'_ his father goes on. _'You don't think I came all the way back here for a reason?'_

When he stands, he sways on his feet. He blames it on the exhaustion and squeezes his eyes shut, leaning heavily on the control panel. If he lets this goes on, the old man will tell him everything he's ever wanted to hear, and as often too. It's like a vibroknife under his breastbone. All it does is make him want to curl up and disappear.

Miserably, he tells himself: "You're only here because I wish you would be. You're not real. Only powerful Force users can hold onto their living selves in death. I don't sense you in the Force at all. I'm alone," he forces himself to say. "As I deserve to be. And you're only telling me not to feel guilty because my subconscious knows it's the best way to make me feel even guiltier than I already do."

And because every part of him hates every other wretched part of him, the ghost of his father isn't deterred for a moment.

' _What good does thinking like that do for anyone, huh?'_

He opens his eyes. The resigned sorrow lining the old man's face looks like the start of a whole new avenue of torture, and he is almost glad for it.

 _This pain is all you deserve. You did this to yourself, you stupid, worthless, horrible boy._

"What good does denying it do?" he shoots back, and turns his attention to the computer. Just a few more steps now.

' _It'll make you feel better,'_ his father says mulishly. _'And fight harder, I imagine.'_

A mirthless bark of a laugh escapes him. "For a figment of my own imagination, you say the dumbest things."

' _Okay, fine, you'll bust out of here with ease either way. You finish rigging up your bomb, jump a ship, and then we'll figure out where to go from there.'_

He stops. Stares.

The ghost of his father waves a dismissive hand. _'I know you're not keen on trying your luck with your mother's people, you don't have to do that. Just send her a note you're okay and pick a direction to fly in. Don't worry about it, kid. It'll work itself out in its own time.'_

Shouldn't a hallucination know that – ? In his chest, he feels their feeble, atrophied bond snap all over again as her body is vaporized by another pilot's torpedo fire. From the corner of his eye, he sees the last switch left to be flipped. Surely his 'father' should know what he knows. Unless his mind is taking this self-inflicted torment another step further and deliberately feigning...

No. His thoughts are too sluggish for this. What does it matter, anyway?

He's just so tired. The humming twilight of the First Order's heart, illuminated only by the low-power red safety lights along the walls, should be the perfect place to fall asleep. But his body seems to need it so badly it doesn't actually _accept_ it anymore. Sleep deprivation has thrown his internal temperature regulation all out of whack. The room is sweltering and yet he shivers, cold somewhere beneath his skin, inside his bones, where the heat of the engines can't reach.

When was the last time he felt physically comfortable? His current stint of self-deprivation had started with nightmares even worse and more frequent than usual, escalated through a bout of paranoia that Hux would deviate from his usual modus operandi of poisoning the competition and come for him in his sleep just like Skywalker had, and culminated in an attempt at turning his discomfort into fuel, refined by the Dark Side. It's always a gamble once the pain or deprivation starts to affect his mental faculties, a delicate, half-drunken balancing act. This time, it had only worked for a while. He's too far gone to remember if that was a long or a short while.

Balance, though, yes. There is a curious, fleeting balance to the kind of thing he is about to do. A single, perfect moment when the forces of creation and destruction are equal, tearing apart the old yet bursting violently forth with something new.

He reaches for that idea in the Force. Finds it. Feeds it. Nurtures it. _Gorges_ it, slowly, relentlessly, unceasingly, drawing on reserves inside and outside of himself he's not sure he has ever accessed before, until the cosmic power gathered around him eclipses the explosion he is about to set off.

Untold light-years away, he feels Rey sit up abruptly in her bunk and take notice. He feels – oh, even now the Force and the dead and the twists and turns of his grey matter are cruel. Another ghost or hallucination or vengeful Force-current stirs to life, and he feels his mother's head snap up from her reports and, propelled by dread and impending heartbreak, she stands so abruptly she knocks back her chair and looks around and around, animal instinct overpowering Force sensibilities as her soul cries out _no! Ben, no!_

It's enough to make him hesitate.

So he looks at his father. He takes in the face he inherited so much from. The greyed hair and wrinkles that had developed while they were apart and surprised him when reunited.

The still smouldering hole in Han Solo's chest, where Kylo Ren had run him through.

He says: "I never hated you, you know. I just missed you too much. I couldn't think of any more ways to make myself stop missing you."

' _Aww, kid,'_ his father sighs.

Sirens start blaring. The Order has finally caught on to his plan.

"I'm sorry. I love you," he says, and can no longer keep his face from crumpling, or his tears from falling, or his voice from skipping. "P-please believe me, Dad."

' _Of course I believe you,'_ his father says. He steps forward to hug him, and still there is _nothing_. His sins are too great for the world to grant him even that, even now, because he killed his father and there's no coming back from that. The very air around him is seething with energy, his body and mind are an icy wasteland, and he can't take another minute of this. But amidst all that chaos and agony, there is still, also, peace.

Time's up, after all.

"Thank you," he says, and turns toward the control panel.

He moves through the final detonation sequence. Everything else fades to white noise.

' _Wait!'_ his father suddenly exclaims from over his shoulder. _'Wait just a damn minute. There's no timer on that detonator!'_

"No, there isn't," Ben Solo says, and hits the switch.


End file.
